Macbeth
By
William Shakespeare
Act V:
Scene 5

MACBETH.Hang out our banners on the outward walls;The cry is still, "They come:" our castle's strengthWill laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lieTill famine and the ague eat them up:Were they not forc'd with those that should be ours,We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,And beat them backward home.

[A cry of women within.]

What is that noise?

SEYTON.It is the cry of women, my good lord.

[Exit.]

MACBETH.I have almost forgot the taste of fears:The time has been, my senses would have cool'dTo hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hairWould at a dismal treatise rouse and stirAs life were in't: I have supp'd full with horrors;Direness, familiar to my slaught'rous thoughts,Cannot once start me.

[Re-enter Seyton.]

Wherefore was that cry?

SEYTON.The queen, my lord, is dead.

MACBETH.She should have died hereafter;There would have been a time for such a word. —To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,To the last syllable of recorded time;And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,And then is heard no more: it is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing.

[Enter a Messenger.]

Thou com'st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.

MESSENGER.Gracious my lord,I should report that which I say I saw,But know not how to do it.

MACBETH.Well, say, sir.

MESSENGER.As I did stand my watch upon the hill,I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,The wood began to move.

MACBETH.Liar, and slave!

[Strikimg him.]

MESSENGER.Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so.Within this three mile may you see it coming;I say, a moving grove.

MACBETH.If thou speak'st false,Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,I care not if thou dost for me as much. —I pull in resolution; and beginTo doubt the equivocation of the fiendThat lies like truth. "Fear not, till Birnam woodDo come to Dunsinane;" and now a woodComes toward Dunsinane. — Arm, arm, and out! —If this which he avouches does appear,There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.I 'gin to be a-weary of the sun,And wish the estate o' the world were now undone. —Ring the alarum bell! — Blow, wind! come, wrack!At least we'll die with harness on our back.